


Silence Has Its Place

by adabsolutely



Category: Highlander - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-18 05:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adabsolutely/pseuds/adabsolutely
Summary: Thanks mountains and oceans to my beta, Mackiedockie, who help me cross the miles.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 27
Collections: Highlander Secret Santa (ShortCuts) 2019





	Silence Has Its Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morgynleri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/gifts).



> Thanks mountains and oceans to my beta, Mackiedockie, who help me cross the miles.

It seemed quiet for a crowded tavern. The view was good from Joe’s private table, tucked at the back of the music stage. Methos studied the young bar patrons bent over their phones, ignoring their compatriots sitting across from them. “Pardon me for sounding ancient, but who stole the thunder?”

Joe nodded. “It’s kinda weird.”

Methos took a long swallow of his beer. “Conversation’s a dying art. I fear for us. Is this how people vanish? Too absorbed in the ether to reach out to the one next to you?” He sighed and took another sip. “Joe, have I ever told you about the time Darius and I traveled together from Rome to Paris? We had some great conversations on that trip.”

“You’ve told me multiple versions of when you met Darius. Each more fabulous than the last.”

“The _official_ version? Okay, the first time I met Darius he was only a few hundred years old. Still a soldier. Powerful. With many men following him. At the time, he served a feudal lord suffering in sick bed. His heirs tasked Darius with finding a healer to cure him.”

“You?”

“I was local. I should have dashed when I heard of the army nearby, but I had a young wife with children. A kind, dynamic woman, determined that her children survive. She’d lost her first husband to plague. When I moved into the area with my herbs and potions she made me welcome in the community. Helped me fit in. I encouraged the keeping of cats to the detriment of rats. I hadn’t quite made the connection with fleas, only a hunch of the unbalance I saw. The development of towns and villages tended to concentrate – ”

“Adam, Darius?”

“Darius! Yes. But that’s not the time I was going to tell you about.”

“Adam!”

“Hold on Joe, this one’s more interesting than a sickbed story. This occurred much later, several hundred years after Darius shortened Turowmaine at the gates of Paris.”

“How do you spell that name?”

“Just like it sounds.”

“So often in the journals he’s just referred to as ‘the holy man’.”

“Don’t you want to hear my story, Joe?”

“I’m all ears.”

  
  


I was returning a favor. Centuries before Darius had protected me from his lieutenant Grayson, while his troupes ‘escorted’ me to their lord’s court to treat their ledge for over indulgence. Thank goodness it wasn’t the plague. Jumping forward to about 1100 AD, Darius now needed to return to Paris after a sojourn to Rome while avoiding the not-so-kind attention of Grayson.

In the intervening years, Darius and I occasionally exchanged queries on the use of herbs for treatment of battle wounds and diseases, thanks to the service of messengers whose sideline was most likely with the Watchers.

One autumn of that century, I received a message from Darius while he visited Rome. His letter stated that Grayson lurked about the vicinity. Darius had been searching Church archives for old herbal cures, and was ready to return to his church in Paris and hoped that if I accompanied him home it would dissuade Grayson.

I sailed down from Marseilles, eager to see Darius after so long. We met on holy ground, under the shelter of three olive trees, near an old library, not the new Vat that opened in the fourteen hundreds, but one of the precursor archives. 

Although I knew of his travels to monasteries and ashrams around the world in the centuries since his light quickening, it still surprised me to see him dressed in simple priest robes. Any doubt I had about the profoundness of his transformation vanished. His military mien had been replaced by an expression of wonder.

“Adamus! Good to see you again.”

“And you, Darius! Your City thrives I see.”

“Not mine! Mine is Paris.”

“Marseilles is warmer.” Trying to sell him on my little city on the Rhone.

Together we planned a bit more difficult a route to Paris than the main roads, so as not to be easily overtaken. On the first leg of our journey we decided to sail my small boat back to Marseilles, where I then resided. This would take a couple weeks, but it would be a couple weeks of Grayson not knowing where Darius had gone.

Tacking northward with only the fulmars to over hear us, we caught up on gossip, compared our wanderings, and shared a jug of wine. “With any luck at all we’ll not catch a glimpse of Grayson whatsoever,” I reassured my friend. “It never fails to amaze me when one of us doesn’t accept change. How else can we survive as immortals?”

“I know what you say, even mortals must accept the flow of time. Have you ever taken a quickening that changed you profoundly?”

“Not one like you experienced. There have been a few that rattled my world, though most change has come slowly for me. The years chipping away my rough edges until all that's left is the tame healer you see.”

“Yes, the one who carries around enough blades in his clothing to arm a fine band of fighters!”

“Keeps me bound to the earth, no floating away into the wind.”

The salt air sharpened our senses, as we breezed north then west, chatting while I worked the sails. Near Marseilles I recognized my abode by the single balloon pine overhanging my modest casa of white stone where it clung to a bluff above the sea. From there we would rest and collect provisions for our journey.

“Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay here for the winter? The rain is warmer here than in Paris.” I offered him my Mediterranean haven, hoping for a season of good companionship.

“My parishioners need me – or at least I am needy enough to hope that they do so.”

After a night of rest, we packed traveling provisions then made a trip to the local market to buy some additional necessities for ourselves and my horses for a long journey. 

Instead of the direct road following the Rhone north, we veered slightly east scouring the rolling middle ground where the sub-alpine herbs flourished. We paused frequently to rest our horses and fill our collection bags. We discussed the healing properties of selected herbs and the treatment of battle wounds.

“If only they would stop fighting,” Darius said, not for the first time, “if only I could persuade them.” We agreed on the philosophy, but Darius was more optimistic about the length of time it would take. (My estimate being never.)

“It is a helpless feeling being a priest on a battlefield.”

“I’m sure. Like being a healer during plague times. Desperate for answers.” I plucked a leaf from an unfamiliar shrub and crushed it between my fingers to release its aroma. “A willow.”

“Tell me, Adamus, where were you from originally? Who were your people?”

“Wanderers. Barbarians, they’d probably say in these modern days. You?”

“The Urals. We were not a peaceful people.”

Traveling northward we skirted the Alps, but were elevated enough to see if there were other riders approaching. This was ground familiar and loved by both of us. Searching for springwater and hunting small game slowed our progress. We set up camp each dusk on the flattest scrape of land we could find, and hobbled our horses to graze. It became a contest for us to see who could start a fire quickest to cook a meal. Occasionally we’d add a hare or partridge to the dry provisions for our stew. After a meal, Darius unboxed his traveling chess set and took great delight in beating me.

The crisp mornings led to snow flurries about a week into our journey, so I kept in mind the location of shelters that I had made do with in the area. When the snow began falling insistently we detoured to a cave large enough for us and our horses. This cave had sheltered travelers often, including myself occasionally. Shepherds had stashed dry wood and refuse middens edged the cave walls. We cleared camp space around the central fire-pit. The cave was locally called Three-day-cave, and I’m sure it had been occupied longer than I had tread the earth. 

The dry kindling made quick fire. That night we shared a bit of grain with our horses, before heating our stew. Afterward we set up the chessboard and played. Darius won, again. Later I wrote in my journal, a pastime which seemed to make Darius smile. Finally he asked me, “What if a watcher gets a hold of one of your diaries?” Not surprising that an observant immortal of a thousand years knew of the Watchers.

“They have. Only fair. I’ve a few of their chronicles. ‘A boring healer who avoids fights.’ Not very exciting to them. But they do take good care of books.”

“They know you then.”

“They know all of us. They’ve known versions of me. Adamus the healer. I’m over due to disappear again. Maybe England for awhile. Let the rain wash me new.”

“Before you disappear again I have something to give you. Once we get back to Paris, do not let me forget.”

“I love surprises.”

“No you don’t.”

“True. Only from you.”

We huddled at our fire as darkness vanished the snow covered hillsides, dialing down our world to the crackle of the wood, the bright flames, and pungent horses. 

Darius told me of his youth. “As a boy I remember staring into a campfire as the old men told us stories of other people, horse people, scattered about on the plains, people who would attack us. When I look back now I see we were being taught to mistrust outsiders, to become hardened to fighting.”

“So you were part of the tribe? You’d been adopted as one of them?”

“Yes, I did belong. I know it isn’t always so for immortal children.”

I answered his unspoken question. “I don’t really remember the details of my childhood. But I didn’t belong.”

“You were a slave.”

“Yes, of course. I was not a person of peace either.”

“But you changed.”

“It wasn’t a holyman’s quickening that changed me. It was a scholar teaching me to read. So long ago, I’m not sure what language it was now, but it became my greatest habit, a thirst for knowledge.”

“I would say that as habits go it has served you well.”

“It’s a better life.”

The next day while waiting for the snow to melt we made torches of firewood and pitch to allow us to go exploring deeper into the cave system. Slipping through tight spots we emerged into a stalagmite dripping cavern. I thought of it as ‘the gallery’ filled with outlined hands and herds of animals painted on the rock walls.

“What do you think they dreamed of?” Darius asked me.

“The hunt, death, sex.” Darius laughed.

“What do you think they dreamed of?” I asked him.

“All those things of course, but also, why are we here?”

“And so religion is born. To comfort, and control.”

“Cynical are you?”

Still gazing at the walls. “Maybe. I don’t care why I’m here. I’m just glad that I am.”

We retraced our path through time, shimmying through the narrow pinch before the outer cave we heard voices. Young, excited. Then the sound of our horses moving. I shouted as I emerged, saw a glimpse of two youths, maybe ten years old, they had un-hobbled our horses, mounted without the stirrups, then charging down the hillside.

I started to dash after them, Darius grabbed my arm, saw the anger in my face. “Remember they are only youths. We will catch them, but we don’t need to chase them. We could make it worse.”

“I know. I wish I had a bit of woad to mix up and paint my face. Give them a scare.”

“I am sure we could find some down in the valley.” He was teasing me. “How long does it take to wear away?” I imagined arriving in Paris painted as Death. I had to laugh at myself.

“The woad never wears away,” I confessed.

“We will find them, they’ve left a path in the snow a baby could follow.”

We took the time to grab our packs, and so burdened, trudged down hill in the alarming straight-downward direction they’d taken. We found them about seventy yards below. One child on the ground clutching her ankle, the boy kneeling beside her. One horse had hightailed it away, the other stayed with its thrown rider. I treated the child, I examined the horse, but it was Darius in his priest’s robe that scared the righteousness into the children. I splinted the girl's twisted ankle, she was brave and refused to cry. The remaining horse was uninjured. The brother and sister lived a mile further down hill so we walked with the injured girl mounted and watched for the other horse. It followed us at a distance, but remained free.

The mother of the thrill seekers wore her exhaustion well, as if at any moment she planned to catch her breath. She apologized, scolded the children, and started feeding us all in a breath, ordering about a throng of children – too mobile to count – of which our miscreants were the oldest two, twins. After a reviving bowl of stew, I left Darius to peace make and set out to acquire our second horse.

I again walked slowly uphill toward the cave. When close enough for the horse to hear, I rattled grain in a bag, a promise the mare followed. Head in the feed sack I slipped a rope around her neck. Together I and my run-away collected any gear we had left in haste from the cave. 

It was dusk before I returned to the children’s home, which I finally noticed was a good farm and vineyard with a nice mob of goats, situated on a defensible hill with a clear view of the valley below. 

The children’s father had returned by now from the market in the village located below in the valley. He and Darius were deep in talk, solving the world’s woes. Darius was strongly advocating that children should be taught to read in order to cope with the modern world, while the father thought more chores were in order. The father’s practicality looked as though it might fall to the tired mother’s continuing nod in agreement with Darius as he told of how society was changing, and how those with the valuable reading skill were sought out. That night we placed our bedrolls near their hearth and in the morning were served a most delicious feast. The children promised to behave and we promised to pass their way again.

Darius and I took a path north, walking our horses the first day to make sure they were fit after their dash of freedom. We debated the wisdom of removing our journey to the valley floor, considering the snow, and the decreasing likelihood we had been followed by Grayson. Gradually we worked our way to the valley floor where people were more abundant and so we were less relaxed, more on edge, watching for followers, which there were, but appeared just to be Watchers reacquiring us.

The weather continued its cold streak, cutting into us, decreasing our desire to take any more side trips to collect herbs. At an accelerated pace we traveled northward along the Rhone, forded across to the west bank at Lyon, then followed the Saône for half of its length before striking out overland to Dijon. We then made the climb from Dijon angling northwest toward the Seine, which we would follow to Paris. We continued to camp out during the journey, but now that we traveled in the valleys the appearance of towns sometimes coincided with dusk or exhaustion and we rented lodging.

At Troyes we found lodging on the rowdy side of town. Darius wanted to avoid the Cathedral area, having had his full dose of bureaucracy in Rome. It had been about a half century since the Roman and Orthodox popes had excommunicated each other, and still there was turmoil, and a simple priest could feel the need to blend into the background, especially closer to home as we now were.

Troyes is a crossroads town where the north/south and east/west travelers meet, so the talk in the public room of our inn was of great adventures, which both Darius and I found hard to resist. And this inn was the place to be. We settled in happily to participate. In hindsight, we should not have been surprised when we felt the thrum of an immortal approaching. Still, my first glimpse of Grayson in centuries was an unpleasant start.

He boldly marched to where we sat at a communal table. He stared coldly at Darius, but addressed me. “I remember you – the healer. Still searching for cures?” I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I found I had little patience for Grayson’s arrogance. Darius stood up, “Let us talk out-of-doors.”

That Grayson readily walked out with two immortals suggests bravery and idiocy.

“This endless fighting! It is not necessary,” Darius said as we walked toward the river bank.

“A man of ‘peace’ and a healer of mortals, what a waste of immortality.”

“It is the endless taking of life that is a waste,” Darius responded.

“Will you pick up his sword once I take his head?” Grayson pointed at me.

“No. This one,” looking at me, “will be here long after we are both gone.”

It might have just been one of those bravado things you say to rattle an opponent, but it made Grayson ask me, “How old are you, Adamus?”

I did not answer him. We continued walking to the flat open area near the river. I pulled my main sword and shucked my coat, the clank of other weapons hitting the ground surprised Grayson.

“Well, maybe this will be fun after all.”

I did not take my time to test his mettle, but burst after him with no mercy. The light would be gone soon and I did not want to start this over in the morning. I cut him twice before he realized his mistake that I wasn’t as harmless as I looked. I tripped him and took his sword, ran him through. It all happen faster than I can tell it.

“Please, Adamus, don’t take his head.” I had expected this and was ready to comply, though it was against my better judgment. We dragged him to a tree and trussed him to it with haste before he could revive.

“We should go before he wakes.”

“No. I need to talk to him. Go get our horses, please, Darius. Trust me, I’m not going to take his head, but I need to talk to him. We don’t want him to continue following us.”

Reluctantly Darius left.

Finally Grayson drew in a windtunnel breath. It hurts a lot to revive when tied up. He did not seem happy to see me. “So you want to gloat before you take my head.”

“In a thousand years, if we are both alive, I will meet you again. Here.”

“Why?”

I walked away. Silence has its place. 

Darius and I left Troyes that night. It would take several hours for Grayson to free himself, by which time we would be far away. We had to stick to the main road in the dark, but once we had light we took a random path, and continued to do so for the rest of the way back to Paris.

At home in his church, Darius treated me to some of his lovely tea and gave me that gift he’d mentioned early in our journey. He pulled from his pack a bundle wrapped in linen and handed it to me with a pleased grin.

“Thank you my friend for accompanying me on my journey.”

“What’s this then?” Though from the shape I knew.

“I found this in the archive in Rome.”

I quickly unwrapped the book shaped object to discover an old journal. One of my old journals.

“Thank you my friend. This means a great deal to me.”

Safely back on holy ground, Darius declared he would stay put, though we both knew his love of wandering, and helpful nature, would eventually draw him out again. An unarmed immortal cannot expect to make it forever, but Darius did well and gave back to the world.

  
  


Methos gave a sigh and turned his gaze outward to his surroundings. Joe’s Blues Bar remained low key.

“So, Darius knew who you really were, that you’re Methos, not just Adamus?” Joe whispered the question, though it was obvious that the tavern patrons were not paying any attention to the band stage. They were still mostly lost in their own little pocket sized fire lights. 

“Maybe, but he never let on. I don’t start a new journal, ‘I am Methos,’ but if he read all of that particular journal, while in Rome, then it’s likely he had surmised.

“Did you ever see those young horse thieves again?”

“Oh yes. They were suffered to learn to read. And the boy became a watcher.”

Joe grinned. “How’d that happen?”

“A story for another day, my friend. It must be time for you to play some music, Joe. Your patrons need an emergency wake up call.”

“I can do that.”

Joe moved to the microphone, grabbed his guitar up from the open case, and began a rowdy blues number about staying one step ahead of the devil. The spell broke, the crowd woke, looked up and began smiling.

  
  



End file.
